Anthropology, philosophy, journalism and poetry

4 NEW RELEASES

Between the Earth and the Sky: The Penguin Books of Forest Writings

Edited by Savyasaachi
Penguin Books India
258 pages
Rs 295

This collection brings together forest writings that cover history, anthropology, wildlife, ecological and environmental studies, literature and travel, throwing light on different aspects of the forest.

While Jim Corbett sees the forest as a hunter and Prakash Moorthy weaves a tale about poaching in Kerala, Visvajit Pandya writes about the Ongees of Little Andaman.

Guru Nanak celebrates the seasons in his Barah Mah and Sri Aurobindo celebrates the forest as the Infinite Mother in "Savitri", while Verrier Elwin and Ruskin Bond celebrate the intimacy man shares with nature.

The Yaksha Prashna from the Mahabharata and Ramchandra Gandhi's "Sita's Kitchen" explore the forest as a space for discourse even as Gilgamesh, one of the earliest conquerors of the forest, stands in sharp contrast with its caretakers like Kotgudin and Billy Biswas.

The Radiance of Ashes

by Cyrus Mistry
Picador
463 pages
£16.99

This is the story of Jingo, a drifter, dropout and dreamer, and his non-conformist choices. Jingo refuses to go abroad for further studies, rejecting any form of class privilege in what he calls "a hideously unequal society".

As he makes a living as a part-time door-to-door market researcher, he tells himself he's collecting characters and insights for a novel. But is he serious about this vocation, or is he just caught in inertia festered by a cruel social order?

Hacks and Headlines: a novel

by Rashme Sehgal
Roli Books
319 pages
Rs 295

A caste killing of an upper-caste girl, Paro, and her lower-caste lover, Jano, becomes the catalyst for a chain of events exposing the worlds of media and governance.

Set in the late 1990s, Hacks and Headlines weaves different strands into a story about the intrigues and jealousies in the world of conmen, politicians and journalists.

Three Indian Poets (Nissim Ezekiel, Dom Moraes, A K Ramanujan)

Edited by Bruce King
Oxford University Press
218 pages
Rs 395

This revised and updated edition brings together the poetry of three contemporary Indian poets "" Ezekiel, Moraes and Ramanujan "" who are often considered the pioneers of modern Indian poetry in English who played significant roles in creating a cultural space for postcolonial Indian English-language verse.

Three Indian Poets is an introduction to their lives and work, including the chief characteristics and development of themes.

It examines their preoccupations, traits and the evolution of their poetry over a long writing career. A brief biographical sketch of each poet is followed by a close literary analysis of his body of work and discussion of technique and individual poetic process.

Included in this volume are three additional chapters (one on Ramanujan's "Black Hen" and two on Moraes' final four volumes), as well as updated biographical and bibliographical information.